According to Amazon’s announcement, “Kindle Vella is a new storytelling option from Kindle Direct Publishing to self-publish serialized stories, one short episode at a time. Readers will access Kindle Vella stories in the Kindle iOS app and on Amazon.com.”

Authors can use it now to begin building an inventory of serialized stories. Amazon will launch it to readers this summer.

Kindle Villa from the experts’ perspective

When it comes to providing insights and advice, I’m a big believer in staying in your lane. This topic is outside mine, but it’s an important one that I don’t want to ignore.

Because of that, rather than researching this myself, I’m connecting you with Kindle Vella summaries provided by experts I trust.

Here’s a quick review of their articles on the subject and a link to the full text of each.

Reedsy, “What is Kindle Vella? And Should You Join as an Author?”

Read this first. It’s the most thorough explanation of how the program works and whether there’s income-generating potential for you.

Pay close attention to the section titled, “How do Vella authors get paid?” It offers specifics I haven’t seen in any other Vella analysis.

Kindlepreneur, “Kindle Vella: Description, Features, and Tips for Authors”

Kindlepreneur is great at breaking things down step-by-step, and this article is no exception.

Writer Jason Hamilton’s long article answers all of your questions before you know what they are. Bookmark this one for its nuts-and-bolts perspective.

CreativIndie, “How to publish serialized short fiction with Kindle’s new ‘Vella’ program”

Derek Murphy comes at this from the viewpoint of an author who plans to leverage it immediately.

Murphy is planning to write three serialized stories:

1. Epic fantasy
2. Hardcore thriller
3. Serial-killer suspense

He offers a good overview of Kindle Vella competitors — serialization sites that are already well-established with readers who like this format.

Is it for you?

Are you and what you write a good fit for this new Amazon platform? It’s worth exploring if you:

• Write fiction
• Create stories that can be serialized
• Write for a young audience
• Are comfortable using KDP’s publishing platform
• Have a following you can market to

It’s important to either be writing for young readers already, or be able to do it — not everyone can. For the most part, baby boomers aren’t reading serialized fiction on their phones so if that’s who you want to write for, move along. There’s nothing for you here.

Are you going to give this a try? Please tell us in a comment why you’ll explore this interesting new platform.